Having an unshakeable, inner confidence is something many of the introverted, senior women leaders want when they come to me for coaching. To the outside world they may appear confident, and it is this external confidence that has enabled them to get so far in their careers.
However, certain situations can knock this external confidence. Like being blown by the wind on a stormy day, someone’s words or behaviour can take the wind right out of their sail.
As a child, did you ever learn to ice skate? If so, did you find that when you first started you kept falling down, scared that someone would crash into you? Instead of gliding around the ice rink, did you move slowly around holding onto the side?
Then as time went on, and you gained experience, you could let go of the side and skate around the rink effortlessly and confidently. But you had to stay focused and not be swayed by other skaters coming your way, and not panic when the realisation hit you that you could fall at any time.
It is the same with developing unshakeable, inner confidence. It is something that does not automatically come naturally to everybody, but it is something that everyone can work on and develop. And as you do this, it gets better with time.
Unshakeable, inner confidence is something many of us desire. But some introverted women tell themselves they don’t have it. And they hold themselves back from being as bold as they would like to be, or from speaking up and saying what they really want to say.
Their perception of themselves is based on what they believe about themselves and the situations and environments when their confidence is shaken. Because many of them magnify those experiences where they lacked confidence, in their minds these override the 99% of experiences where the confidence was high.
I can very much relate to that. I remember 8 years ago when I first started delivering webinars. After my first webinar, the feedback was overall incredibly positive. Everyone bar one person rated the session a 4 or 5 out of 5. That one person only rated it a 2.
In the absence of an explanation why they rated it a 2, I drew my own conclusion, something many women do in the absence of feedback. I spent the evening ruminating on that one person’s rating. Almost talking myself out of ever delivering a webinar again. I told myself it could not have been good enough if they only rated it a 2. But thank God for self-awareness.
Because I have a high level of self-awareness, I quickly recognised what I was doing. I was magnifying that one person’s rating and disregarding the other 99%. The majority of participants hand found my webinar a valuable experience. This was evidenced by their feedback.
Not only that, I woke up the following morning to 2 emails from participants each informing me what a difference the webinar had made for them. Furthermore, when reading back over the responses to questions asked during the webinar, it was clear that the person rating it a 2 had not needed the support I offered. I had also failed to factor in it was my first time using the technology.
How many times do you do something similar? I see it constantly when clients first come to me for coaching. But like me, they too get a shift in their thinking when the light bulb goes on for them, lighting up the lack of evidence for the unhelpful beliefs they hold about themselves.
If you want to have that unshakeable, inner confidence, here are 3 things that you can do to help you achieve this:
Develop your self-belief
Believing in yourself and your ability is the first step to unshakeable, inner confidence. Stop thinking that you have to be like other people and accept yourself for who you are.
If you have developed the necessary skills, knowledge, and experience, you have what it takes. So, look at yourself and your situation from a rational perspective, not the perspective of someone who made you feel like you were not good enough.
Whether you are an introvert in an extroverted environment; a woman in a male dominated environment; a black woman in a white dominated environment; or other minority to the dominant group, stay grounded in your inner confidence. Do not let the fact that you are different to the majority knock your confidence and make you feel like you have to be like them in order to fit in.
Practice, practice, practice
If you take yourself back to ice skating as a child, what was it that enabled you to get to the stage where you could skate confidently without stopping, and without falling down? It took practice. And just like the situations you find yourself in now, confidence comes with practice.
Know what it is that you need to do and take the action time and time again. If you don’t put yourself in situations where you can put it into practice, that unshakeable, inner confidence cannot grow.
Self-awareness
Self-awareness is the glue that holds it all together. Once you have that inner confidence, it does not mean there will not be times when your confidence is knocked. However, self-awareness enables you to see what is happening and quickly apply the techniques needed to regain it.
Without self-awareness you will go from situation to situation that throws ‘you’re not good enough’ at you, and it will chip away at your inner confidence until it is shaken. Examine what is going on for you, compare it to times when your confidence was high, and take the lessons learned and apply them.
Unshakeable, inner confidence is something we are all capable of having. You wouldn’t throw away a whole bowl of fruit because of only one bruised grape, so don’t write yourself off because of the 1% of situations where things didn’t go right for you.
What will you do (or what have you done) to develop and maintain unshakeable, inner confidence? Please let me know.
First published on LinkedIn.
If you are an introverted woman and a senior leader and want to increase your confidence, influence and impact, take my free assessment and get a report identifying areas to develop. You can take the assessment here.